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Last week, the Supreme Court decided to uphold the partial-birth abortion ban that President Bush had signed into federal law in 2003. Basically, it bans the abortion procedure that involved delivering a late-term baby from the womb until only the head remained in utero, at which time (pardon the expression) the doctor inserted surgical scissors into the baby's skull and removed the brain. In a word, infanticide. So on the face, it would appear that this decision is a huge triumph for the pro-life movement. However, not to be pessimistic, but in reality this is a very small step. This ban does NOT eliminate in utero late-term abortions, just a method of carrying them out. So, while it is fantastic that finally SCOTUS stood up to the pro-abortion lobby, we have a very long way to go. So along those lines, here is an article by Dinesh D'Souza proposing how pro-lifers continue that fight in the mode of Abraham Lincoln and his fight against slavery.

I am not an expert on the abortion issue, but I have learned a great deal about it, strangely enough, by studying the Lincoln-Douglas debates. These debates were about slavery. But look at how closely the arguments parallel the abortion debate.

Douglas, the Democrat, took the pro-choice position. He said that each state should decide for itself whether or not it wanted slavery. Douglas denied that he was pro-slavery. In fact, at one time he professed to be "personally opposed" to it. At the same time, Douglas was reluctant to impose his moral views on the new territories. Douglas affirmed the right of each state to choose. He invoked the great principle of freedom of choice.

Lincoln, the Republican, disagreed. Lincoln argued that choice cannot be exercised without reference to the content of the choice. How can it make sense to permit a person to choose to enslave another human being? How can self-determination be invoked to deny others self-determination? How can choice be used to negate choice?...The argument between Douglas and Lincoln is very similar in content, and very nearly in form, to the argument between the pro-choice and the pro-life movements. Pro-choice advocates don't like to be considered pro-abortion. Many of them say they are "personally opposed." One question to put to them is, "Why are you personally opposed?" The only reason for one to be personally opposed to abortion is that one is deeply convinced that the fetus is more than a mere collection of cells, that it is a developing human being....What, then, is the challenge facing the pro-life movement? It is the same challenge that Lincoln faced: to build popular consent for the restriction and ultimately the ending of abortions. Right now the pro-life movement does not enjoy the support of the American people to do this. Neither, by the way, did Lincoln have a national mandate to end slavery. It is highly significant that Lincoln was not an abolitionist. He was resolutely anti-slavery in principle, but his political campaign focused on the issue of curtailing the spread of slavery to the territories.

In my view the pro-life movement at this point should focus on seeking to reduce the number of abortions. At times this will require political and legal fights, at times it will require education and the establishment of alternatives to abortion, such as adoption centers. Unfortunately such measures are sometimes opposed by so-called hardliners in the pro-life movement. These hardliners are fools. They want to outlaw all abortions, and so they refuse to settle for stopping some abortions, with the consequence that they end up preventing no abortions. These folks should learn some lessons from Abraham Lincoln.

Where I think D'Souza slips a bit in his conclusion is where he mentions pro-life "hardliners." While I am sure there are some people who can't see the forest for the trees in the pro-life movement, almost everyone I have met understand that you must be able to chew gum while walking, so to speak. If we are ever going to see abortion eliminated in this country, we will have to do all the small things along with the big ones. We aren't likely to wake up one morning and find that abortion was completely banned; rather, slowly, conservatives will have to chip away at the laws and policies currently on the books.

John Derbyshire, Nathanael Blake, and Mark Steyn all weighed in on the Virginia Tech shootings last week; primarily in regards to the apparent lack of self-reliance of the students at the campus. All three were hit with a firestorm of anger from people on the left who apparently don't feel that one can make such an observation. While it is a touchy subject and one has to be careful not to belittle the victims, asking where the men in our culture have gone is a viable question. After all, the only two men at Virginia Tech that have been reported to have actively attempted to disarm the killer were a middle-age ex-military professor and an elderly professor who survived the Holocaust. Beyond the murders at VT, though, Steyn wonders about the overall "culture of passivity" that appears to be taking hold in this country.

We do our children a disservice to raise them to entrust all to officialdom’s security blanket... when something goes awry... the state won’t be there to protect you. You’ll be the fellow on the scene who has to make the decision. As my distinguished compatriot Kathy Shaidle says:

When we say “we don’t know what we’d do under the same circumstances”, we make cowardice the default position.

I’d prefer to say that the default position is a terrible enervating passivity. Murderous misfit loners are mercifully rare. But this awful corrosive passivity is far more pervasive, and, unlike the psycho killer, is an existential threat to a functioning society.

Steyn followed up this column with one in the Chicago Sun-Times yesterday, in which he discusses the inability for our society to come to grips with reality.

And at Yale, the dean of student affairs, Betty Trachtenberg, reacted to the Virginia Tech murders by taking decisive action: She banned all stage weapons from plays performed on campus. After protests from the drama department, she modified her decisive action to "permit the use of obviously fake weapons" such as plastic swords....I think we have a problem in our culture not with "realistic weapons" but with being realistic about reality. After all, we already "fear guns," at least in the hands of NRA members. Otherwise, why would we ban them from so many areas of life? Virginia Tech, remember, was a "gun-free zone," formally and proudly designated as such by the college administration. Yet the killer kept his guns and ammo on the campus. It was a "gun-free zone" except for those belonging to the guy who wanted to kill everybody. Had the Second Amendment not been in effect repealed by VT, someone might have been able to do as two students did five years ago at the Appalachian Law School: When a would-be mass murderer showed up, they rushed for their vehicles, grabbed their guns and pinned him down until the cops arrived.

But you can't do that at Virginia Tech. Instead, the administration has created a "Gun-Free School Zone." Or, to be more accurate, they've created a sign that says "Gun-Free School Zone." And, like a loopy medieval sultan, they thought that simply declaring it to be so would make it so. The "gun-free zone" turned out to be a fraud -- not just because there were at least two guns on the campus last Monday, but in the more important sense that the college was promoting to its students a profoundly deluded view of the world....To promote vulnerability as a moral virtue is not merely foolish. Like the new Yale props department policy, it signals to everyone that you're not in the real world.

The "gun-free zone" fraud isn't just about banning firearms or even a symptom of academia's distaste for an entire sensibility of which the Second Amendment is part and parcel but part of a deeper reluctance of critical segments of our culture to engage with reality. Michelle Malkin wrote a column a few days ago connecting the prohibition against physical self-defense with "the erosion of intellectual self-defense," and the retreat of college campuses into a smothering security blanket of speech codes and "safe spaces" that's the very opposite of the principles of honest enquiry and vigorous debate on which university life was founded. And so we "fear guns," and "verbal violence," and excessively realistic swashbuckling in the varsity production of ''The Three Musketeers.'' What kind of functioning society can emerge from such a cocoon?

It seems like all of this hinges on the left's inability to recognize that evil exists NATURALLY in the human heart and is not a product of upbringing, culture, or circumstances. If we pretend that an evil man only exists if he is carrying a gun or was raised by rednecks in Alabama, we are historically naive. As the ignorant fool, Lawrence O'Donnell, frothed on The McLaughlin Group yesterday morning:

It was a high-tech killing because the magazines he was using in his automatic weapon were illegal during the Clinton administration. He would not have been able to buy them if George Bush and the Republican Congress did not allow them to become sold to mentally ill people like this... There were kids on that campus who were brave enough and big enough to stop one person with a gun unless it was an automatic weapon that could spray the bullets, just spray them, Pat [Buchanan]. That's why they couldn't stop him.

This man's fear of guns makes him so pathetically wrong about every detail. For one, it was NOT an automatic weapon used by Cho. Nor were the magazines he used illegal during Clinton's reign. Nor did Bush allow guns to be sold to mentally ill people. Also, since they weren't automatic weapons, they obviously didn't "spray" bullets. And he calls himself a journalist.

That's basically what Sheryl Crow is now proposing to stop global warming.

"I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting."...Crow also... thinks paper napkins "represent the height of wastefulness".

She has designed a clothing line with what she calls a "dining sleeve". The sleeve is detachable and can be replaced with another "dining sleeve" after the diner has used it to wipe his or her mouth.

Is it just me, or is each new idea more insane than the last? Of course, what she doesn't realize about cloth sleeve napkins is that they require washing and washing requires hot water which requires energy most likely in the form of gas and electricity. Not to mention drying them. Then again, perhaps she intends on going down to the river and washing them by hand and then line-drying the "dining sleeves."

No wonder Lance Armstrong broke up with Ms. Crow... she's losing her mind.

It seems like every week, radical Muslims come up with a more disgusting low in human history. Of course, Christians know that there is "nothing new under the sun" and that man's heart is wicked to the core. But still, when you hear about kidnappers in Iraq returning a woman's infant beheaded and cooked or terrorists using children as a ploy to car bomb a military outpost with the kids still in the car, it is hard to believe that - please pardon the expression - humans could be that cruel. But once again, they have shown that they can be even worse.

The boy with the knife looks barely 12. In a high-pitched voice, he denounces the bound, blindfolded man before him as an American spy. Then he hacks off the captive’s head to cries of “God is great!” and hoists it in triumph by the hair.

I've shown you in a previous post what we're fighting FOR in Iraq... this is what we're fighting against.

Since the mainstream media has disgustingly decided to honor the VT killer's desire to become famous, and would rather show numerous amounts of video and pictures of him while showing minimal coverage of those whom he murdered, it appears that the rest of us have to show tributes of those lives which have been ended. Check out this video which does just that. The first 2 minutes or so is of the video creator's thoughts on some other issues, but if you skip ahead, the last 5 minutes are a montage of photos of most of the victims of the VT murderer.

From the title, you would think I must be talking about China or North Korea. Unfortunately, I am not. Just today, the European Union enacted new rules regarding racism and "hate crimes."

In a declaration, EU justice and interior ministers said the rules would aim to make a crime "incitement to hatred and violence and publicly condoning, denying or grossly trivializing crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes."...The proposal calls on EU nations to punish those who publicly incite violence or hatred based on a person or group's race, color, religion, descent or ethnic origin.

On the face, it sounds decent enough. I mean, who is in favor of those who deny the Holocaust or incite violence against other people? Almost everyone would agree that such people are scum. However, this is in fact a very dangerous law. Today it criminalizes those who deny genocides, tomorrow it could easily criminalize those who stand up to radical Islam (or any other vile ideology) and call its supporters "evil." This is just another rule in a long line of ones which have put a chilling effect on free speech in Europe. It would seem that sticks and stones are fine in Europe, but words are beyond the pale. Yet somehow, I seriously doubt that the imams currently recruiting terrorists all over Europe and INCITING VIOLENCE will face any charges under these new laws.

Well, I indeed had the great opportunity to hear Mark Steyn speak at noon today. I actually walked over to the lecture hall behind the group he was walking with, so I knew I wasn't running late. He spoke for about 30 minutes, then answered questions for another 25. He began by making a comment on yesterday's murders at Virginia Tech. As our society and pundits are apt to do in situations such as that one, the "experts" are rushing to say how this shows that we need more gun control. However, Steyn insisted that, as always, the individuals are the ones who save the day and if you are want future VTU killings to be stopped sooner, letting people be armed is the key. Allowing for self-reliance and moving away from the nanny-state where the police are the only ones with the guns was Steyn's take on it. He is right, if there had been just one trained person nearby carrying a weapon, that killer would have been taken out with much fewer casualties. Instead, our college campuses have this inane rule that even if a person has a conceal-carry license, they are not allowed to carry that gun onto campus. It doesn't protect students, it makes them more vulnerable to attacks such as yesterday's.

Anyway, then Mr. Steyn got into his main subject matter (The Islamification of the world and the downfall of the "West"). He did so by mentioning four separate stories that have been printed this week in newspapers here and abroad. The first was one in the Minneapolis Star Tribune ("hardly readable" as Steyn called it, with which the audience heartily agreed) discussing a local college's decision to offer Muslim-only bathrooms that allow Muslims to wash their feet for prayer time. Then he pointed out one from the Wall Street Journal which talked about a Muslim imam in Indonesia who wants to transform that country into a radical Islamic state. The next was one from a Cambridge newspaper mentioning that a student in England had just profusely apologized for printing cartoons which may have mocked Islam (nevermind that it mocked all religions). The last article was one discussing the population crisis that Europe has encountered. Steyn said that in any given week, you can find very similar stories which fit certain categories and give you a picture of what is happening in the world.

He went more in depth and discussed the lack of cultural confidence that is prevalent in Europe and how that weakness is being exploited by radical Muslims. After a few more points, he took some questions. One question was something to the effect that he may pooh-pooh global warming, but does he see any value in alternate energies and the sort. He answered that global warming is a joke and he doesn't see how bankrupting the world's economies is going to make much of a difference except to kill many people in the third world who are relying on the developed world for survival. As for individual environmentalism, he doesn't see how "Hillary turning off the light to Bill's intern's room" makes a difference. However, he is very much in favor of destroying the oil industry and finding a new energy resource to make us no longer reliant on other countries. However, Steyn feels that ethanol and most of the current fads aren't going to be that solution.

I don't recall all of his speech, but suffice it to say, it was very enjoyable and he is definitely as entertaining of a speaker as he is a writer.

Next week, John Stossel is in town. I might just have to go to that...

Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse...I wasn't planning on mentioning the Imus stuff again, but this MSNBC interview of Jason Whitlock, the sportswriter I linked to last week, is great. The best part: he calls the Revs. Sharpton and Jackson "terrorists" for their role in stirring up racial hatred. I'm not sure if I would use that particular word, but they are guilty of race-baiting and other evils. They are modern day Pharisees, judging everyone else's twigs while ignoring their own ocular timbers.

Steyn weighed in this week on the Don Imus hullabaloo. As always, his wit nearly outshines the subject matter. He could write about how to properly peel a turnip and still he would have me rolling out of my seat. Side note: I am likely going to have the good fortune of listening to Mr. Steyn speak in person tomorrow afternoon, as he will be in town to speak at the University of St. Thomas. I will post a synopsis of his talk on here later this week.

What was it Martin Luther King dreamed of? A nation where men would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their characterizations?...It's a good rule of thumb in American scandals that, no matter how big an idiot someone is, the outrage over him will always be more idiotic....Needless to say, [CBS chairman Les] Moonves fired Imus after first meeting with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton. I have a dream that my children will one day live in a nation where a white guy can be fired for racist remarks without his employers having to prostrate themselves before clapped out professional grievance mongers and shakedown artists. But dream on. Two men who slandered the Duke lacrosse players not just as racists but as rapists (by the way, has the Rev. Jackson come through on his promise to pay for the "victim" to go to college?) are the go-to guys when it comes to judging rhetorical excess in respect of varsity sports teams....And saddest of all were the Rutgers basketball gals themselves. Almost a century and a half after the abolition of slavery, 40 years after the civil rights era, a group of young black women who've achieved great success went on TV and teared up because of a cheap crack by an over-the-hill shock jock....Only in America: a team of champions who think they're victims, an old white fool who talks like a gangsta rapper and multi-millionaires grown rich on race-baiting who promote themselves as guardians of civility. Good thing there are no real problems to worry about.

A friend of mine forwarded me this article by Jason Whitlock, a black sportswriter for The Kansas City Star and former contributor to ESPN's Sports Reporters show. In it, Whitlock bemoans the racial (double) standard that applies to Don Imus' racially-charged comments but apparently to none of 50 Cent's lyrics.

You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.

You’ve given [head coach] Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.

Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.

The bigots win again.

While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.

I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.

It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.

This column ranks up there with Bill Cosby's "Pound Cake" speech for speaking powerful truth to a deaf culture.

Now to answer the questions more specifically. Hopefully one will be able to tell, but I have no animosity toward any person who may believe that man-made global warming is a big problem; my disdain is directed entirely at the politicians and scientists who are (mis)leading the hysterical global warming charge. I welcome any evidence that contradicts my opinion, I just have yet to find any. If one is to read my past blog entries regarding global warming (GW) AND their accompanying links, he or she should find a pretty solid answer to most of these questions. However, to bring everything together in a more succinct manner, I will address the questions here. Also, if anyone wants to know the sources of the data that I quote but don't link to, please ask. Additionally, let me reiterate something I have said before: I agree that GW is happening to some extent, though not entirely globally. I just feel the evidence appears to indicate that the amount of causation due to humans is very low or non-existent and that even if humans have caused some GW in the past, nothing we do can really make a difference to affect future global temperatures.--------------------------Q1.) What evidence would convince me that global warming is real and caused by humanity?

Answer: If it were solid, scientific evidence (rather than the tripe currently trotted out as "undeniable" fact), I would much more seriously consider it. However, when Al Gore claims that the oceans will be 20 feet higher by the end of the century while almost ALL the scientists, even those who are prominently pushing the theory of human-induced GW (i.e. U.N.-paid lackeys), are saying that AT MOST the seas will rise a mere 2-3 inches in the next 100 years, one wonders if someone might just be "warm-mongering" for political gain. Since when did science disavow skepticism as a primary characteristic? If the science is so solid, why are doubting scientists being fired and de-funded for speaking their minds? Science used to embrace debate and skepticism. Also, it would help to convince me if they didn't completely ignore other OBVIOUS and documented likelihoods, such as that the earth has been cyclically warming up and cooling down since it was formed many years back and is just currently in a warming period.------------------------Q2.) I don't seem to care to base my beliefs on much science, so what would convince me that climatologists and the like are sincerely concluding that GW is occurring and that humans are the cause; instead of just being a group of weather Nazis (in so many words)?

Answer: Ignoring the fact that sincerity has no effect on veracity, the answer lies in the question. That scientists are CONCLUDING beyond any apparent doubt that GW is caused by humans confirms that they have left science and the scientific method (at least as I know it) far behind. Statistics and correlations do NOT prove cause and effect. Unfortunately, we see this happening all the time in other areas of science. First we hear that it's unhealthy to be fat, then we learn that fat people might actually live longer. For example, say I walk down the street and come across a man incessantly clapping his hands as loud as he can. I ask him why he is doing that and he says that the sound keeps the tigers away. I tell him that there aren't any tigers nearby; to which he replies "see, it's working!" That is basically what is happening here. Scientists are measuring higher carbon dioxide levels and concluding that humans are the cause. The scientific method is as follows:

Human-induced GW does not fit that at all. Sure, we've observed some higher temps, and yep, we've noticed some higher levels of gas in the air. So we would then hypothesize that one might be causing the other, but not certain which one (since there is reason to believe either way). But even if we decide to guess that the latter causes the former, we still have no idea what causes the gas. So then we would further hypothesize that humans could be causing it OR, as is more likely, there are some other natural reasons for the uptick in carbon dioxide. But we'll go with humans for this argument's sake. Next, we need to predict and then test our predictions to prove or disprove them. Uh oh, Houston, we have a problem. To scientifically test something, you need a closed, controlled environment. Last time I checked, the atmosphere and related stuff such as the earth and space are about as open and uncontrolled of an environment possible. Oh well, we'll ignore that last step and just call humanity-induced global warming "verified fact."-------------------Q3.) What solutions does Al Gore advocate that would "kill millions of people?" Most practical actions to curtail global climate change are actions you could take for a variety of other reasons, such as reducing your energy bill, increasing US energy security, and reducing the presence of smog in America's major cities.

Answer: The main solutions Mr. Gore has proposed could severely hurt the developed world's economies, thus seriously hindering those countries' ability to care for the undeveloped world (i.e. Africa, South America, Hollywood). Also, reducing our energy bills and reducing smog only helps ourselves and our pocketbooks, it doesn't make an iota of difference to the environment. Had the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty on GW, been 100% ratified, and all the countries actually complied, global temperatures would have lowered by .07 degrees Celsius by 2050. That's right, it would have had no statistically significant effect. Meanwhile, the United States GDP would have been cut by 20% by 2010. In other words, ruin the economy, don't change a thing. So if the large-scale emission changes called out by the Kyoto Protocol for every developed country can't make a difference, how exactly does it matter if I (or ten million Americans for that matter) switch in more energy efficient light bulbs?--------------Q4.) Finally, why do I accept science's projections of future populations in Russia and Saudi Arabia but not the IPCC projects of future global average temperature?

Answer: I'm not sure where to start, since it's like comparing apples and oranges. Population projections are nearly impossible to screw up, at least once you have data such as past growth, current birth rate, current death rate, immigration rate, etc. There are only so many factors that can be considered. Obviously, a population could see an increase in immigration or a renewed love of babies, but history tells us that, at least with the latter, once a country is in the population death spin, it never pulls out. I will grant, though, that the projections for Saudi Arabia are likely a little on the high side; since their birth rates are likely to come down over time. As for future global temp projections, one only needs to review my links to Drs. Lindzen and Gray in my last post to see the fickleness of such efforts.--------------

OK, well, I'm sure I missed something and likely made generalizations for brevity's sake (if you can call a 1500-word post "brief"). As for tying this back to my Christian beliefs and worldview, I will admit that, science aside, I am usually quite skeptical of anything anyone claims as truth; either about this world or the next. I try to "test everything and hold onto the good." More specifically, I fail to see how worrying about how warm a piece of ice in the Arctic has gotten or running out to buy a hybrid vehicle furthers the kingdom of God or brings even one person closer to finding eternal life. I neglect His kingdom enough as it is, why throw another distraction in my way? Furthermore, did Jesus not say

Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Any questions, random thoughts, or snide remarks, feel free to place them in the comment section below this post.

As the article on global cooling reminds us, scientists are fallible human beings, but so are Dr. James Dobson and Chuck Colson. As earlier comments have correctly stated, scientists have "more scientific evidence and more sophisticated instruments to gather that evidence than there was years ago," and the cooling article does not "prove global warming wrong."

I am a follower of Christ, a physicist, and a friend of Darius' brother Jonathan. I am not a socialist; I do not advocate communism; I am not attempting to "destroy the world's economy," and I certainly do not consider Al Gore a "great prophet." Having said that, I wish to pose a few questions.

What evidence would be necessary to convince you that rather than being an imaginary product of "junk" science and a "current fad," global climate change is real and being caused by human activity?

Your previous posts have revealed that your real disdain is not primarily based on the science, which leads to my next question. What would be necessary to convince you that climatologists and atmospheric scientists are sincere in their conclusions about global climate change, as summarized in the IPCC reports, rather than being a group of Gaia worshiping, hysterical, "who's who of moral idiots" who are "false Christs and false prophets" deceiving Christians "by a worldly philosophy" in order to destroy the "wicked capitalist Anglo-American man."

What solutions does Al Gore advocate that would "kill millions of people?" As far as I know, most practical actions to curtail global climate change are actions you could take for a variety of other reasons, such as reducing your energy bill, increasing US energy security, and reducing the presence of smog in America's major cities.

Finally, why do you accept science's projections of future populations in Russia and Saudi Arabia but not the IPCC projects of future global average temperature?

First of all, before reading the rest of this post, review my previous posts about GW. I feel it's probably necessary that I expound on some of the details for my previously stated beliefs and explain that they are not based solely on my worldview or my opinions of the global warm-mongers, but that I do actually have solid scientific backing (or at least can show how weak the GW proponents' evidence is). I am not a scientist, nor would I ever claim to be, having studied limited amounts of most scientific subjects while majoring in mechanical engineering. However, I have read up some on the subject of GW and found some real experts in the field who have more fully explained the faults in the GW hysteria. For the basics, read the past Mark Steyn columns which have been linked to in some of my GW posts. However, since Mark Steyn is not a scientist, I feel it is necessary to reference some atmospheric scientists and climatologists.

The first is Dr. Richard Lindzen, an atmospheric physicist and Professor of Meteorology at MIT. He's spoken and written extensively on the issue. It is his belief (along with many other scientists in the field) that while global temps have gone up about .5 deg. Celsius in the last 100 years, there is no clear evidence that carbon dioxide is the cause. Dr. Lindzen wrote an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal last summer which summarized his feelings on the matter quite well.

A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse. Regardless, these items are clearly not issues over which debate is ended--at least not in terms of the actual science.

A clearer claim as to what debate has ended is provided by the environmental journalist Gregg Easterbrook. He concludes that the scientific community now agrees that significant warming is occurring, and that there is clear evidence of human influences on the climate system. This is still a most peculiar claim. At some level, it has never been widely contested. Most of the climate community has agreed since 1988 that global mean temperatures have increased on the order of one degree Fahrenheit over the past century, having risen significantly from about 1919 to 1940, decreased between 1940 and the early '70s, increased again until the '90s, and remaining essentially flat since 1998.

There is also little disagreement that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have risen from about 280 parts per million by volume in the 19th century to about 387 ppmv today. Finally, there has been no question whatever that carbon dioxide is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas--albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in carbon dioxide should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed, assuming that the small observed increase was in fact due to increasing carbon dioxide rather than a natural fluctuation in the climate system. Although no cause for alarm rests on this issue, there has been an intense effort to claim that the theoretically expected contribution from additional carbon dioxide has actually been detected.

Secondly, I refer you to Dr. William Gray, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University and the PREMIER hurricane forecaster in the world. He believes that the earth will actually start COOLING in the next 5-10 years as it gets to the end of this current warming cycle. Here is an article about Dr. Gray and his GW skepticism. It's a bit lengthy, so be prepared. I will make another post soon directly addressing the comments above.

Johnny Hart, the creator of the wonderful comic strip B.C., died this Easter weekend at his storyboard, working on the comic he had written and drawn for nearly 50 years. His last Easter comic, printed yesterday, is shown below, as well as another one from a few years ago. He spent this Easter with his Lord.

Today is opening day of the 132nd season of professional baseball. That's right, the summer that General Custer was getting himself cut to shreds at Little Bighorn the Chicago Cubs were fielding grounders and stealing bases for the first time (in 1876, the Cubs were called the Chicago White Stockings). The game of professional baseball has transformed from that initial 8-team league to the now 30-team combined National and American leagues. While such stars as Albert Spalding (who later founded the Spalding sporting goods store) made a mere $40 a week back then ($700 a week by today's standards), today's baseball stars make close to a million dollars per week. Likewise, the founding players used bare hands to field while today's players spend $300 for a good leather glove. While much of the nation's pastime may have changed, the theme song has been the same for nearly 100 years. Take Me Out to the Ballgame is profiled this week by Mark Steyn in his ongoing "Song of the Week" series.

Today, 99 years after he wrote it, “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” is the third most performed song in the country, after “Happy Birthday” and the national anthem. It’s part of the soundtrack of America. And, as Sinatra put it on that long ago radio show, "as long as our national pastime is played by free men in a free land", we’ll be singing Jack Norworth’s words to Albert Von Tilzer’s tune – one, two, three strikes, over and over and over, but never out.